A limited constitutional government calls for a rules-based, freemarket monetary system, not the topsy-turvy fiat dollar that now exists under central banking. This issue of the Cato Journal examines the case for alternatives to central banking and the reforms needed to move toward free-market money.

The more widespread use of body cameras will make it easier for the American public to better understand how police officers do their jobs and under what circumstances they feel that it is necessary to resort to deadly force.

Americans are finally enjoying an improving economy after years of recession and slow growth. The unemployment rate is dropping, the economy is expanding, and public confidence is rising. Surely our economic crisis is behind us. Or is it? In Going for Broke: Deficits, Debt, and the Entitlement Crisis, Cato scholar Michael D. Tanner examines the growing national debt and its dire implications for our future and explains why a looming financial meltdown may be far worse than anyone expects.

The Cato Institute has released its 2014 Annual Report, which documents a dynamic year of growth and productivity. “Libertarianism is not just a framework for utopia,” Cato’s David Boaz writes in his book, The Libertarian Mind. “It is the indispensable framework for the future.” And as the new report demonstrates, the Cato Institute, thanks largely to the generosity of our Sponsors, is leading the charge to apply this framework across the policy spectrum.

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Humans Are the True Wealth of Nations

What’s the quickest way to increase the wealth of a nation? Increase the immigration of knowledgeable people.

The current value of all of America’s physical capital, like factories and buildings, is about $45 trillion. But the value of all human capital is 16 times that — about $740trillion. Immigration adds human capital to the United States in the cheapest way.

“What’s the quickest way to increase the wealth of a nation? Increase the immigration of knowledgeable people.”

Human wealth-creating potential is exemplified by stories of individuals overcoming adversity to advance scientific knowledge, start firms, or create a tasty new cuisine.

For example, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, a company so widely used that its name has become a verb, came as a refugee from the Soviet Union. It’s unlikely that he would have co-created Google in the Communist USSR or today’s chaotic Russia — where businessmen like Mikhail Khodorkovsky are locked up at whim.

Then there are the numerous German Jewish chemists who fled Nazi Germany ahead of the Holocaust. They jumpstarted an industrial revival that eventually increased innovation in the American chemical industry of about 10 percent, according to research by economists at Stanford and the University of Warwick.

It’s not just higher skilled immigrants who innovate and contribute to a nation’s wealth. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa grew up in the village of Palaco, Mexico. As he told NPR, “I was literally hungry for food. My stomach was empty.” Because there was no legal way for Quiñones-Hinojosa to legally immigrate, he hopped a fence and toiled in agriculture.

He eventually worked his way through community college, the University of California, Berkeley, and Harvard Medical School.

Quinones eventually became a citizen and is now director of the brain tumor program at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical center, specializing in advanced surgical treatments for a variety of brain and spinal tumors.

Innovations in food often begin with an infusion of foreign talent, spices, and skills. Japanese restaurateur Nobuyuki Matsuhisa, or “Nobu,” is one such example. As Los Angeles Timesfood critic S. Irene Virbila wrote, Nobu’s “canon of stylish fusion sushi have influenced a generation — more likely two generations — of sushi chefs across the country.” Nobu gained experience in Japan and Peru before choosing the United States as the homebase of his world-wide restaurant enterprise.

There are downsides to kicking out human capital.

A notorious example is that of Chinese immigrant Qian Xuesen, who earned his Ph.D. from the Cal Tech in 1939. During World War II, Xuesen worked to develop a rocket that could counter Nazi Germay’s V-2.

In 1950, Xuesen was accused of being a Communist. Without evidence, he lost all of his security clearances. Denied all of his opportunities to work in the United States, he tried to leave but was detained and traded for American pilots shot down during the Korean War — to China, where he went on to design missile systems. U.S.

Undersecretary of the Navy Dan A. Kimball, who knew Xuesen personally, said “It was the stupidest thing this country ever did. He was no more a Communist than I was, and we forced him to go.”

If every country allowed free markets to flourish as much as the United States, the world wouldn’t miss out on much innovation. But because predatory governments rule much of the world, innovative immigrants need to be allowed to come to relatively free places like the United States or else their talents will be wasted — to everyone’s loss.

A rational immigration system that allows hardworking people to come to America legally can grow our human capital — and expand our economy.